I’ll bet you never realized you learned it in school. That men are assertive. independent and capable, that women are passive, weak and dependent was, in all likeliness, trans- mitted to you in the classroom. _

Sure your parents —‘ and other adults -—

probably helped. And television, books and magazines did nothing to contradict these edicts about the nature of the sexes. ,' But by and large, no social institution has worked as hard as the educational system — from pre-school- to post-grad —- to teach males and females their “proper” places in society. '

It starts in nursery school. A spate of re- centstudjes have revealed how both male and female teachers from pre-school on unwit-

tingly foster an environment where children learn that boys are aggressive and able to solve problems. while girls areobedicnt and docile. .

By treating boys differently than girls teachers unconsciously maintain. if not actu- ally create, the belief that boys are better equipped for the world of action,_ where they can and do influence their environment, while girls are .the passive recipients of male initiative.

When girls attempt to join in the energetic play of the boys more often than not they are admonished for being l‘tomboys.” Even when they are not speciﬁcally forbidden’to engage in the rough-an‘d-tumbie play, they

are often effectively prevented from doing so by the restrictive dresses that are still .the re- quired uniform in some Vancouver schools.

Girls soon discover that being a girl is not as much fun as being a (boy.

. Boys receive more attention in the classroom than girls do, reinforcing notions that boys are more important. Numerous studies have documented the fact that al~ though boys are yelled at more by their teach- ers than girls,” they 'are'also listened to more, and receive more praise and instruction.

in a comprehensive study by Lisa Serbin it >

was revealed that boys received eight,times more individualized instruction than girls, ex- cept when the classes were involved in tra- ditionally feminine activities, like cooking or sewing; ’ ' ’ . That wOmen are rankedlower‘ than men is demonstrated by virtually every social insti- tution, and the educational system is no ex- ception. The social relationship between men and women that children most often observe ’ in school is that of the usually male principal to the usually female and subordinate teacher. According to the status of women committee of the B.C. Teachers Federation in B.C., despite the fact that 95.5 per cent of elementary school teachers. are female, only 10 per cent of the elementary school princi- pals are women. 7 . ‘

ls it surprising then that as children ad- vance through school girls experience a grow- ing sense of inferiority While boys do not? Al- though children do not differ measurably in self-esteem when they enter the school sys— tem, as reported in the Joumalof Genetic Psychology, as boys and girls progress they. come to think more highly of boys, with a corresponding drop in their regard for

Children learn early and pervasiver what' ’

girls do is different from what boys do. Play materials are /clearly sex-typed, with a wider range of toys designated for use by boys. “Free play" is a misnomer because during time set aside for free play girls tend to ‘ guided either by implicit expectations or by direct suggutions from their teachers toward playthings that prepare them for their future roles as mothers and homemakcrs. Conversely, boys have more options {and are allowed more free-ranging play. They soon learn, hoWever, to avoid dolls and other play materials considered feminine. » These-distinctions between appropriate ac' tivities for boys and' girls create rather than reﬂect the heterogeneous aspirations of each sex. . The school system seems bent on per- petuating these scx»role stereotypes. in Junior high the girls are shunted off to home eco-

vuh q-oMJIrbr-A'i ALA‘O'U'ar-a m -a

' group.

nomtc classes‘wliere theyﬂlgaﬁrufgdgop’ky.

and knit in preparation for home and hearth _ (or at best a career that approximates this ideal). _

Meanwhile boys learn a variety of career- oriented skills like woodworking, drafting, metalworking and power mechanics.

But discrimination against women is at its height - or depth -- in textbooks ranging

' from children‘s readers to college required

reading;

Girls and boys pick up many clues about the relative importance of each sex by their exposure to how language is used. The com- mon use of the allegedly gender-generic terms (using “he” instead of "he or she”) conveys the impression of female exclusion to child- ren, as it does to most people.

Children tend to interpret things literally, and the masculine pronouns are more likely to be interpreted as referring exclusively to males. Moreover, their confusion is com-. pounded by the fact that there are no rules about when “he” means “he,” and When it means “he or she.”

When presented with words like “police- man" and "fisherman" children have prob- lems believing that such terms include “the possibility of a female fishing, policing, fighting ﬁres or delivering mail.

Exclusion at the most basic level of langu- age cannot help but contribute to the erosion of a girl’s self-esteem.

Another quirk of our language that further delineates the inferior status of women is the use of “girl” to refer to adult women. Boys grow up to be men, but girls are always girls. The implication of this anomaly is similar to the implication of calling a black man "boy." V

The second major problem with the reading material available in the schools is that women are noticeably absent. Most books involve male protagonists and male adventures. When women are present they are usually insigniﬁcant, one-dimensional

characters in limited but highly sterotyped roles. . .

While boys are presented in a variety of ' roles— they can play basketball, rescue a neighbor’s cat or learn to sail a boat — girls.

- that Jill is" afraid of Jack, Thursday, March 12, 1981,, page 11

BoysAﬂd G‘IrlsTodalf Lem" '5

Female students tend to gravitate toward the humanities while there is still a preponderance of men Ill the tnath and science departments.

The effect of teacher expectations is graphically illustrated in a study in which teachers were told to et-

pect a marked increase in the academic achievement of certain students who were actually chosen at random. The students the

teachers believed would excel, did,

-«in fact. perform much better than the other students. '

However, the school system. for

all its biases and inequities. cannot

be held entirely l'CSpOIlSlhlt‘ for this dismal state of affairs. The institu- tion of education is no more than the socmh/ing tool of society and as such merely reflects sexism (not to mention racism and elitism) built into Stlt'lt‘tv. Schools hint-tion to maintain lttCrtHClllCS. to keep dom- inant groups dominant. Universities, the seats of higher knowledge, should be exempt from the prejudices of the general populace. but they're not. The peo- ple who nnyc made it to university. either as students or facility. have i made ll by going through the

At the university level social science texts tend to reflect a masculine bias. Social scientists have the odd habit of conducting their experimentation on white males and making generalizations about the entire population. it is not uncommon to see the results of parallel studies an women added as a postscript, an exception to some universal law of behavior.

The problems of boys and girls who see themselves portrayed in texts in highly rigid sex roles are compounded by unconsciously scx— ist teachers and counsellors. When junior high school teachers were asked to describe good female students in a recent study. they used the adjectives "appreciative," "calm." and "conscientious." "Active," "adventurous" and "aggressive" were words used to describe ideal male students.

Furthermore there is evidence high school counsellors tend to en- courage "appropriate" career choices for male and female stu- dents rather than encouraging in- dividuals to discover‘their own potential.

By the time they reach university the-sexes have been successfully pigeondrolcd into opposite spheres.

svsteut. and It shows.

are depicted most often in domestic situa-‘ tions. They bake cakes for bake sales. help mom do the shopping or watch brother mend a broken bicycle. '

Adult males are seen in many exciting oc-

cupations: they can be astronauts, architects 0r animal trainers. Women in children’s texts

are usually'full-time mothers always ready

with a snack for junior or a kind word for M.Mm women do work it is invariably a- sex-typed career such as secretary, nurse or teadter.

Children learn the limited occupational

choices available to women when the only ex-_ amples they are exposed to are biased and not 5 true reﬂections of women’s capabilities. I A survey of children’s literature by the ed-, ucation committee of an American feminist the National Organization 0 Women, uncovered some blatant differences in the way the sexes are characterized. They found women are usually portrayed as being

passive. unachieving, unadventurous, sub-

servient, emotionally weak and somewhat lacking in ethics. ‘

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